Letter: Town Meeting is not serving democracy's purpose

The bottom line numbers from last week's special Town Meeting in Somerset are worrisome and require the attention of Somerset officials, particularly Town Moderator Lucia Casey.

The bottom line numbers from last week’s special Town Meeting in Somerset are worrisome and require the attention of Somerset officials, particularly Town Moderator Lucia Casey.

According to The Herald News’ report on the meeting, just 585 Somerset voters (about 4 percent of those registered) attended the meeting that took nearly four hours to resolve 21 warrant items (some of which were postponed). Speaking from the floor was dominated by just three people.

In my view, those numbers do not serve the cause of democracy. Too few voters sat too long and too late to listen to discussion dominated by too few.

Nearly half the meeting was devoted to the proposal to create an appointed treasurer-tax collector position. That was decided in the affirmative by a tedious secret ballot that took too long to conduct.

This record bodes ill for future town meetings in Somerset which are likely to feature even longer agendas with even more contentious issues. Somerset has only just begun to cut back on spending. The town meeting is an inherently unruly form of pure democracy that could easily topple into chaos unless corralled.

This is not the fault of Casey, but it is her problem to help manage. Her goal should be to encourage more town voters to participate in town affairs by ensuring that their investment of time will be well spent. Our system is built on the principle of majority rule, not minority rule.

I am not personally acquainted with her, but I have been impressed with the presence Casey projects at the podium. She begins the meetings promptly, tries to keep speakers on topic and acts with apparent impartiality.

She does well with a difficult job, but the cause of good governance demands that she do better. Town meeting procedures need changes; if not by new bylaws, then by Casey exercising her bully pulpit prerogatives as moderator.

— Time limits need to be set in advance and uniformly enforced on speakers from the floor. Two or three minutes seems fair. A big clock could be used to monitor every speaker’s allotted time and encourage them to make their point and then give someone else a turn.

— Diversions into posturing and politicking should be quickly cut off. Any sentence that begins with “I remember when...” is a tip off that the speaker is about to stray off the point into a trip down selective memory lane.

— Strict avoidance of proper names in favor of job position will mitigate the inevitable need for the named public official to respond to their accuser.

— No speaker should be allowed a second turn on a topic until all others who want to speak get their turn at the podium.

— Secret ballots should be a last-resort measure reserved for only the closest and most contentious issues because the balloting takes too long and is too cumbersome to manage at an open meeting. At the very least, secret ballot voting should first require an affirmative vote of the body by standing vote.

— If an issue seems inappropriate for resolution by voice or standing votes then it probably is a matter better resolved at a referendum election than at a town meeting. Elections are set up to guarantee ballot secrecy; town meetings are set up to guarantee opportunity of debate. It’s hard to have both interests served in the same forum.

— Town meetings should start earlier and adjourn sooner. Why not a 6 or 6:30 p.m. start, with an announced aim of adjourning at, say, 9 or 9:30 p.m., if not before? Three hours seems to me to be the practical limit of endurance for most voters.

— Meeting agendas should be arranged for greatest efficiency and voter participation. The meeting might start with a few non-controversial housekeeping items to allow for late-comers to arrive, then get into the meatiest items and end with less controversial ones. Like items should be ganged together in consolidated items, or at least grouped together.